"A [preacher] who does not love art, poetry, music and nature can be dangerous. Blindness and deafness toward the beautiful are not incidental; they are necessarily reflected in his [preaching]." — BXVI

15 May 2016

Come, Holy Spirit!

Pentecost Sunday

Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Our Lady of the Rosary, NOLA

Back
when Jesus was still traveling around the countryside with his
disciples, he promised them that he would one day go to Jerusalem and
there he would be betrayed, put on trial, tortured, and killed. He
kept that promise. He promised that after he was killed, he would go
into the ground for three days and then on the third day rise again.
He kept that promise. After he had risen from the tomb, he spent
several weeks appearing to the disciples, and during these visits he
promised that he would ascend to the Father. He kept that promise,
ascending to sit at the Father's right hand right in front of his
friends. But before he ascended, he promised that as soon as he
arrived at his Father's right hand, he would send to his friends a
consoler, a teacher, an advocate – the Holy Spirit. His
fulfillment of that promise is recorded in our reading from Acts this
evening. The coming of the Holy Spirit upon that frightened group of
men and women in the Upper Room had a purpose and an consequence, an
eternal purpose and a lasting consequence. The Holy Spirit comes us
to still to strengthen our purpose and to renew the consequence of
His arrival that first Pentecost.

Why
does the Lord send his Holy Spirit upon us? The Lord's reason for
sending the Holy Spirit now is the same as it was on that First
Pentecost – to imbue His people with the Law of Love, a law that
requires no stone tablets, no wild man prophets, no animal
sacrifices. He sent and sends His Holy Spirit upon His people to
create out of those people a holy nation of priests, prophets, and
kings; priests, prophets, and kings who need no temples, no
hereditary priesthood, no special license to gain access through
prayer to the Father. He sent and sends His Holy Spirit upon His
people so that the truth and goodness and beauty of the living God
might abide with them always, live in and with them always. Not in a
single building in just one town in some foreign country. But always,
everywhere, whenever His people call upon His name and invoke the
memory of His great deeds. The Lord sends His Holy Spirit upon us now
– in 2016 – for all these reasons and to strengthen us for the
mission we have been given, the mission we have vowed to carry out –
to go into all the world and bear witness to the mercy of God, the
mercy He offers to every sinner.

That's
why He sends His Holy Spirit upon. So, what is the consequence, the
result of the Spirit's arrival? We can see what effect the Spirit's
arrival had on the scared witless disciples. They run into the
streets, preaching in every known language, shouting out the Good
News of Jesus Christ. We know from Acts that the Spirit-filled
disciples continued to preach and teach in Jerusalem, drawing to
themselves thousands of men and women who received the Father's
freely offered mercy and joined the body of the Church. We know that
the apostles were arrested, jailed, beaten, and eventually martyred
for carrying out the mission they had received. But with them at
every moment, with every word and gesture, with them stood the Holy
Spirit, filling them with the Truth, the Truth who's name is Christ
Jesus. They endured persecution and torture b/c the Law of Love was
indelibly written on their hearts. They could not NOT preach and
teach the Truth they so intimately knew. The consequence of that
First Pentecost and the living-out of the apostolic mission those
first few decades was the establishment of the Church – the living,
breathing Body of Christ that thrives to this day and will continue
to thrive until Christ comes again.

For
you and me, right now, the result of the Spirit's presence in us and
among us is the same as it was back then. We are strengthen and
emboldened to carry out the mission we have received. This world's
opposition to the Good News has not ceased. It hasn't let up even a
little since that first day. I could rattle off examples, but you
know all too well what that opposition looks like. The names have
changed. The faces have changed. But the spirit that motivates that
ancient hatred of God and His love for us never changes. His tactics
never change. His temptations never change. He is a one-note loser
who knows he's lost, and that makes him angry. Watch when a follower
of Christ speaks the truth to those who will not hear it. Anger.
Bitter, all-consuming anger. Our mission is not to fight anger with
anger. We don't go out and proclaim God's mercy and then confront
opposition with threats and violence. We confront opposition with the
words of Christ himself, “Peace be with you.” Our moment of
anger, bitterness, disappointment, and fear ended in the Upper Room
on that First Pentecost. The Spirit that animates our mission is the
Holy Spirit of God Himself – the very essence of promises-kept. If
we are to be faithful missionaries of the Good News, then we must
first be missionaries of Christ's peace.

Notice
the condition of the apostles. Scared to death, abandoned, cornered
in a single room, waiting for the authorities to come kill them. And
into all of that heated anxiety steps Christ, and he says to them
all, “Peace be with you.” And he breaths the Holy Spirit upon
them. He gives them Peace. That peace is not simply a calm, relaxing
feeling. We're not talking about the tranquility that a sturdy
rocking-chair offers. Or the mere absence of conflict or violence.
Christ's peace is an assurance of strength, a guarantee of support.
Christ is doing more here than just calming these worry-warts down.
He's investing them with the power bind and loose from sin, the power
to set men and women free from the snares of that ancient hatred that
has dogged mankind for centuries. What worldly power can stand up to
that?! None! So, be at peace with the Holy Spirit. Be at peace with
your mission. Be at peace with the opposition to your mission. Go out
and bear witness to the freely offered mercy of God to sinners. Meet
anger, bitterness, disappointment, and fear with the abiding Spirit
of Christ. Pray: “Peace be with you!”